Western House, an 18-storey high-rise building was a wonder
to behold when it opened on Broad Street, Lagos Island in the year 1958. It was
the first modern building which opened up on two different streets. From the
Broad street end, you walked up a flight of 22 steps into a reception area and
then a mall. The most glittering shop then was the Glendora Bookshop. Then
there was the coffee shop where young Lagos elite and upwardly mobile came for
dates.
There had been nothing quite like Western House before S.O
Shonibare and the NIPC made it happen. The building was unique because it was a
prime address that housed a shopping mall, a huge office complex and
residential quarters at the top. With the establishment of Western House which
signalled the dawn of a Modern Central Business District, Shonibare and the
NIPC had become the builders of modern Nigeria.
When Western House opened, it attracted the cream of
corporate Nigeria. Every company worth its salt and
in need of a tony office
address came by. In contemporary Lagos, the nearest example would be Milliners
Tower, the former NNPC building on Kingsway Road, Ikoyi which at its peak after
reconstruction and renovation was home to Samsung, Google, GE, Etisalat and
AMCON amongst others.
Shonibare and his NIPC cohorts did a remarkable job of a
turning colonial Lagos into a modern Central Business District complete with
shopping malls, and glittering office complexes which towered high into the
sky.
For an area which had been so well panned by the
colonialists, one begins to ponder the battle Shonibare and the NIPC fought to situate the Western House two
houses away from the prisons (now referred to as FREEDOM PARK) the same prison
where all the founding fathers; Herbert Macaulay Nnamdi Azikwe, Sir Ahmadu
Bello and Obafemi Awolowo had called home at some point.
I am Qismat Aderayo Yinus a.k.a thatisaleekochick and I am super proud to celebrate Western House,
Lagos which symbolizes a great historical landmark in Nigeria.
Additional information from S.O Shonibare- The Legend of all
Time
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